This episode is created and narrated using artificial intelligence (AI).
Have you forgotten what it feels like to be truly, fully alive?
After a long season of grief, burnout, depression, or simply surviving, joy can begin to feel like something that belongs to other people.
In episode 40 of Labels Don't Define Us, Sarah is joined by guest Becky to explore one of the most quietly urgent conversations in mental health: how to find joy again after struggle.
Not as a performance of positivity. Not as a betrayal of the hard things you have been through.
But as a genuine, evidence-based, neuroscientific possibility—available to you right now, in much smaller moments than you might imagine.
This is Episode 40. And there is no better way to mark it.
What you will discover in this episode:
💛 Why prolonged struggle, grief, burnout, and depression physically reduce the brain's capacity for joy — and why this is a temporary neurological state, not a permanent identity.
💛 The science of emotional numbing: why you cannot selectively numb pain without also numbing joy, hope, and connection — and what that means for recovery.
💛 Brené Brown's concept of foreboding joy — the protective habit of bracing against good things — and why it keeps so many people from ever fully experiencing the joy that is already there.
💛 Barbara Fredrickson's Broaden-and-Build theory: how positive emotions, including joy do not just feel good—they actively build psychological resilience, social connection, and physical health over time.
💛 The neuroscience of awe: Dr. Dacher Keltner's research shows that brief encounters with beauty, nature, or wonder reduce rumination and restore positive affect—and why a bee on a flower can be the beginning of everything.
💛 Why joy is contagious: the remarkable finding that it spreads through social networks up to three degrees of separation — meaning your rediscovered joy changes the world around you.
💛 Dr. Rick Hanson's research on taking in the good: why 15 to 30 seconds of deliberate attention to a positive moment can begin to rewire the brain's negativity bias over time.
💛 Becky's intimate account of finding her way back to joy after years of compounding loss—and the tiny, ordinary moment that started it all.
💛 The research on behavioral activation: why motivation follows action, not the other way around—and what this means for anyone waiting to feel like themselves again before trying.
💛 Three practical, science-backed tools to begin rediscovering joy today — starting with the very next moment.
Whether you are deep in a long period of struggle, just beginning to emerge, supporting someone who is, or simply longing to feel more alive in your daily life—this episode will give you permission, science, and a place to begin.
Labels Don't Define Us is a weekly mental health and personal growth podcast about identity, emotional healing, resilience, and living authentically.
Follow Labels Don't Define Us on Acast, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts and never miss an episode.
If today's conversation lit something small back up in you, please leave a review — it takes less than a minute and helps this show reach every person who has quietly stopped believing joy is still available to them.
Share this episode with someone who needs to know that the version of them who laughed easily has not gone.
She is still there. And she just needs one small moment to find her way back.
Please write your suggestions for future episodes in the comments.
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